Bayona Chicken Caesar Salad

This recipe is a variation on a caesar salad recipe from Susan Spicer that we made sometime back.  Last time we made the salad as a side dish, but I wanted to turn it into an entree salad with the addition of some chicken.  Chicken caesar salad was the first salad I learned to enjoy so I wanted to pay homage to it here.  When we made the salad last time I posted about how it would make a fantastic entree salad with the addition of some chicken or shrimp.  It just took me a little while to get around to making it.  But good things come to those who wait, right?  And I have to say, this salad was every bit as good as I thought it would be.  I'm not sure that you need to go to the effort of cooking your own chicken - a store-bought rotisserie chicken would be just as delicious here (and would save you some time), but since we cooked our own chicken I included those instructions in the recipe.  If you are doing shrimp I probably would cook them rather yourself than using the pre-cooked shrimp from the grocery store, but you could totally do that too if you were feeling particularly lazy.  Then again, if you are going to go to the trouble of making the dressing and everything from scratch, you should take the time to cook the shrimp.  Cooking shrimp just takes a few minutes whereas roasting a whole chicken (or even just roasting bone-in chicken breasts) takes forever. 

Recipe after the jump!

Cucumber and Watercress Salad

I was really excited about this salad because I love playing with random simple salad ingredients (and it received very high reviews at the FoodNetwork website).  I have to say that for a number of reasons it was just ok for me.  First, I thought the dressing was a little too sweet.  I love adding a little honey to salad dressing, but this was more honey than I wanted (or needed).  Our other big problem was that our grocery store cucumber had less than no flavor (which was the fault of the cucumber and not the recipe).  It literally just tasted like water - there was no flavor to it at all.  And the watercress wasn't as peppery as some I have had, which I thought would make for a great salad, but that extra peppery flavor might have done more to balance out the sweetness of the dressing.  Overall, if the cucumber had that fresh cucumber taste that I really enjoy the salad would not have been quite as disappoinging.  It would have been a little sweet, but still tasty.  Instead I'm just going to have to settle for the salad being pretty and easy to make, but a little blah.

Recipe after the jump!

Midnight Asparagus with Creamy Eggs

It's finally fresh asparagus season!  Hurray!  In the next few weeks I will probably have a crazy number of asparagus recipes on the blog.  I just can't help myself.  This recipe was one I found on Serious Eats during a recipe garthering/meal planning binge a few weeks ago.  Once I start looking up recipes I can't seem to stop myself!  The thing that I like most about this recipe is how "springy" it is.  Asparagus is essence of spring in vegetable form and once you add in the lemon juice for me it just screams spring.  I'm not certain that it is the most successful asparagus recipe (or egg recipe for that matter) that we have ever done, but it was a really nice meal.  And on top of the taste, it was a super easy one pot meal, which made it even more awesome.

Recipe after the jump!

Garlic Knots Two Ways

The problem with making Jim Lahey's No-Knead Pizza Dough is figuring out what to do with the remaining dough.  We used one ball of dough to make our White Pizza with Ramps, but we had 2 more balls of dough left in the fridge.  I knew right away that I wanted to make a batch of garlic knots and I was thinking about making a calzone with the other dough, but we couldn't decide what kind of garlic knots to make so we decided to make two batches of garlic knots and save the calzone for later.  The Emmentaler and Caraway Garlic Knots were inspired by the cheesy garlic knots that John Fraser's temporary restaurant What Happens When.  We were both obsessed with the garlic knots he served the two times that we ate dinner there.  The Gouda and Cumin Garlic Knots were inspired by a cumin-flavored gouda cheese that was part of the cheese platter at Vandaag.  Alex suggested the second flavor combination and preferred that flavor combination, but I think that his preference is mostly due to the fact that he is not a huge fan of caraway seeds.  I really liked them both and I keep trying to pick a favorite, but I can't.   That's not a bad thing.  The garlic knots had a nice crispy exterior and a really fluffy, moist interior.  They were so good that we had garlic knots for dinner last night and then I had another few for breakfast this morning.  They are definitely best fresh out of the oven, but they aren't bad the next day!

Recipes after the jump!

White Pizza with Ramps

This is recipe number 2 from our experiment with ramps.  And I have to say that this one was more successful than the first.  Alex actually said that this might just be the best white pizza he has ever eaten.  I was stunned.  If I am not mistaken, my response was something along the lines of "Really? Wow."  And then I think I looked at him dumbfounded.  But let me back up a few steps.  Yesterday I went to the farmers' market down at Union Square during my lunch break.  I was just poking around to see what vegetables were available, but when I saw the ramps I had a hard time resisting them.  And once I had them in my shopping bag I started thinking about pizza.  I was thinking about this pizza recipe from the new Jim Lahey cookbook we just bought - the bird's-nest pizza (a white pizza with asparagus and quail eggs).  I was going to just toss a few ramps in with that pizza and call it a day.  But then I started thinking that a white pizza would be a better way to feature the ramps.  So I found a recipe from Food & Wine by Tony Mantuano for a White Cheese Pizza with Ramps.  I used that as the base recipe, but used Jim Lahey's no-knead pizza dough recipe for the crust because he makes amazing breads and pizzas.  Plus we had the new cookbook so I had to try it out.  I have to say that the pizza was one of the best we have ever made at home.  Everything about it worked.  It had the perfect ratio of cheese to topping, the crust was delicious, and it cooked up like a dream.  And the flavor of the gentle, garlicky ramps was fantastic.  I was thinking about adding some crushed red pepper flakes, but I am so glad that I didn't because the pizza was perfect as is.  Man was it good.  I have to admit that I wasn't sure what all of the fuss was about with ramps in our first attempt at making them at home, but now I totally get it.  Yum.

Recipes after the jump!

Grilled Romaine and Halloumi Cheese with Mint Vinaigrette

This recipe wins the award for being the most interesting recipe that Alex and I have made this month.  If we had both an outdoor space to entertain (it could be a rooftop or a backyard - I'm not picky) and a grill, I would love to serve this to friends and family at a backyard BBQ of sorts.  I say "of sorts" because I'm not planning on serving hamburgers, hot dogs and pasta salad here.  I'm talking a backyard get together with fun (and tasty) food.  Anyway, I thought the dish was different enough to be a lot of fun, but not labor-intensive.  It also was familiar enough that I think it would appeal to both picky eaters and adventurous ones.  And it was really tasty.  I love halloumi - it is a salty, firm little cheese that fries or grills up really well.  There is a Druze restaurant near my apartment that makes a wonderful little salad with fried cubes of Halloumi.  They are essentially the best croutons ever.  The only problem is that as the cheese cools it hardens back up and gets a little gummy.  So you are going to want to eat this salad fairly quickly.  But if you take that into account and eat quickly, you will thoroughly enjoy the salad.  The grilled onions are nice and sweet and the grilled romaine is delicious.  The combination of the sweetness of the onions, the zesty dressing and the freshness of the mint worked brilliantly together.

Recipe after the jump!

Madhur Jaffrey's Shrimp Biryani

I have been wanting to make Indian food for a few weeks now.  But something always got in the way.  Tonight we finally had the opportunity to make some biryani.  Biryani is a dish that I have enjoyed at restaurants in the past (although I typically eat chicken biryani rather than shrimp biryani), but I have never attempted to make it at home before.  Madhur Jaffrey is my go-to Indian chef so I decided that I had to use one of her recipes for my first attempt at biryani.  One of our Madhur Jaffrey's cookbooks contains a recipe for lamb biryani, but I found this recipe online at Serious Eats.  Since we had shrimp in the freezer and shrimp is healthier than lamb, I decided to go with the shrimp biryani, rather than the lamb.  Another benefit of making shrimp biryani rather than chicken or lamb biryani is that a biryani with meat takes far longer to cook.

Alex and I are agreed that the biryani was good, but not our favorite Indian dish that we have made.  The shrimp had nice flavor, but the rice was less flavorful than Alex had hoped.  We added a little more lemon juice to the shrimp, which I think was a nice touch, but I wish we had added a little more cilantro to the rice as well.  It also occurred to me after the fact that we could have added some mango pickle (like they do at the biryani cart near my office) or something else to the dish to give it some kick.  Maybe next time?

Recipe after the jump!